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The daily life of a medieval king

medievalists.net

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Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#61

Post by teleforce »

The author is Christine de Pizan, an Italian-born (Venice) French court writer [1].

Fun facts, Christine married at the age of 15, now will be considered by both Italian and French law as an illegal underage marriage. The marriage was, by all accounts, a happy one [2].

She had 3 children from the marriage to Etienne du Castel, (a royal secretary) for about ten years, remained widow after her husband's death.

Christine was Catholic and is often presented as one of the first feminists in history.

[1] Christine de Pizan:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_de_Pizan

[2] Biography of Christine de Pizan, Medieval Writer and Thinker:

https://www.thoughtco.com/christine-de-pizan-biography-41721...

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#62

Post by eviks »

antonvs wrote: post #51
pjc50 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addendum: food security was assured, food choice was very restricted by modern standards. Remember the medieval period is pre-Colombian exchange, so no potatoes, no tomatoes, no peppers. Some spices, but a different range to what modern palates are used to. No refrigeration either, so you're limited to seasonal availability. In the winter that means you're eating a lot of root vegetables and bread, even if as king yo…

> No refrigeration either, so you're limited to seasonal availability. Well, except for food preserved via pickling, salting, drying, smoking, fermenting, sugaring, and confit. Which makes for quite a long list. Plus, various foods like grains, root vegetables, onions, and even apples could be stored for months using proper techniques. They didn't have the luxury we have of not paying much attention to how we store t…

> pickling, salting, drying, smoking, fermenting, sugaring, and confit. Which makes for quite a long list

None of which preserves the taste/nutrition well for a wide range of foods like greens/fruits/vegetables, you the limits in seasonal availability don't get resolved

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#64

Post by mik1998 »

ben_w wrote: post #58
antonvs wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No refrigeration either, so you're limited to seasonal availability. Well, except for food preserved via pickling, salting, drying, smoking, fermenting, sugaring, and confit. Which makes for quite a long list. Plus, various foods like grains, root vegetables, onions, and even apples could be stored for months using proper techniques. They didn't have the luxury we have of not paying much attention to how we store t…

> pickling, salting Yes, but also my understanding is that the preservation technique of that name involves much more salt than modern palettes are willing to tolerate, and also salt itself was much more limited in supply. Despite this, salt as a preservative was indeed critical to civilisation. > fermenting True, and also I want to say "blessed are the cheesemakers" etc. here. :)

There's nothing intolerable about pickled vegetables. I eat them all the time

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#65

Post by rtsil »

fmbb wrote: post #45
dan-robertson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume someone in the 5th percentile of wealth is going to have very negative wealth which is only really possible in developed countries, eg an American medical student or a doctor who is part-way through paying off their loans, or someone suffering from massive credit card debt / car loans. (I think this isn’t really what you were thinking of though. I think the poorest people in the world still live, in many way…

https://www.who.int/news/item/24-07-2024-hunger-numbers-stub... Hunger worldwide has been getting worse for the last quarter century or so. 733 million people don’t have food security. I think about 5-10 million die every year from starvation. In medieval times there were famines, but they were caused by there not being enough food to go around due to disease or bad harvests. Today millions of people starve even if t…

And malnutrition isn't only about lack of food, it's also about mediocre quality of food:

> Similarly, new estimates of adult obesity show a steady increase over the last decade, from 12.1 percent (2012) to 15.8 percent (2022). Projections indicate that by 2030, the world will have more than 1.2 billion obese adults. The double burden of malnutrition – the co-existence of undernutrition together with overweight and obesity – has also surged globally across all age groups.

Obesity will soon, if not already, become a major public health disaster in poor countries.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#66

Post by rtsil »

dontTREATonme wrote: post #5

I always question how accurate these types of accounts were. Even if she wrote this after his death, his successor obviously wouldn’t look too kindly on it being disparaging.

The article says the depiction may reflect idealization, and is also a deliberate inspirational portrayal.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#67

Post by rtsil »

mrits wrote: post #49
nottorp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He drank clear and simple wine, light in colour, ** well cut ** ". It's right there in the original medieval article.

I never heard the term "cut" outside drugs that often involved putting something stronger but less expensive in

Assuming it's translated literally from French, and the meaning of the French verb "couper" hasn't changed since the Middle Ages, it means mixing with water, and is a widely used expression in French.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#68

Post by coffeecantcode »

mrits wrote: post #49
nottorp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He drank clear and simple wine, light in colour, ** well cut ** ". It's right there in the original medieval article.

I never heard the term "cut" outside drugs that often involved putting something stronger but less expensive in

I’ve always heard it generally used as a synonym with dilute - generally speaking with drugs, cut often means incorporating any less expensive (not easily detectable) substance in with the original substance.

More times than not it will not be stronger, it will be compounds that are not psychoactive at all, effectively “cutting” the potency of the substance while multiplying the quantity.

There are cases with fentanyl where a stronger substance is mixed in with the original and this often is what you read about in the news, but it is not in generally in the distributors best interest to be killing their clientele.

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#69

Post by dmurray »

pjc50 wrote: post #48
pjc50 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember many years ago the Economist pointed out one of the Rothschilds died young of something that would have been readily solvable with penicillin, but no amount of money could get you something that didn't exist yet. I'm going to go with a cautious "yes" to the first: the ages at death of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_monarchs are not great. "No" on the second (king is never going to have to wo…

Addendum: food security was assured, food choice was very restricted by modern standards. Remember the medieval period is pre-Colombian exchange, so no potatoes, no tomatoes, no peppers. Some spices, but a different range to what modern palates are used to. No refrigeration either, so you're limited to seasonal availability. In the winter that means you're eating a lot of root vegetables and bread, even if as king yo…

> Addendum: food security was assured, food choice was very restricted by modern standards.

Not by the standards of the world 5th percentile, as in the question posed. The 5th percentile today is mostly subsistence farming and doesn't have access to imported foods or own a refrigerator (though there probably is one in their local village, and they may well own a mobile phone).

Re: The daily life of a medieval king

#70

Post by FergusArgyll »

doctor_blood wrote: post #27
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little has changed, except it's coffee and Spotify for me. Keep in mind that back then, wine / beer were an important source of clean drinking water, and it would often be low alcohol.

https://leslefts.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-great-medieval-wat...

"One should not eat until his stomach is full. Rather, [he should stop when] he has eaten to close to three quarter's of full satisfaction. One should drink only a small amount of water during the meal, and mix that with wine. When the food begins to be digested in his intestines, he may drink what is necessary. However, he should not drink much water, even when the food has been digested."

Maimonedes Human Dispositions 4 (Trans. by Eliyahu Touger)

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